


And all manner of thing shall be well

by Argyle



Category: V for Vendetta (2005), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Powered, Canon-Typical Violence, Dystopia, M/M, Mash-up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-05
Updated: 2011-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-25 17:52:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting mixed up with a freedom fighter is easier than it looks. (An <i>X-Men: First Class</i> and <i>V for Vendetta</i> film universe fusion.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And all manner of thing shall be well

It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It was just a regular sort. Cold, and damp.

 _Drip._

There was bit of a breeze.

 _Drip._

And enough fog to shroud three armed men against the alley wall until Charles was almost upon them -- well within the range he'd normally sense such a group and give himself caution enough to shrug that sense off again -- until one held a long knife to Charles' throat and another pinned his arms behind him, binding his wrists with wire.

The third rifled through his pockets. "Hold still, dearie. This won't hurt a bit." Out came Charles' wallet and keys, his comb and his mobile.

"I've nothing of value," Charles rasped. And the knife eked closer, nicking the pale, taut skin at his throat. He became gradually aware that his heart was fucking _racing_ , might jump clear out of his chest at any moment, might well've killed him quicker than those reeking arseholes in ulsters and watch caps ever could.

He didn't say anything else.

But he thought: _This is it._

Then he thought: _Shit_. That was because the laughter turned into cries. It happened so fast. Something flashed back and forth in the air, glinting metallic. The three men dropped to the dirty, wet pavement, and settled there like flour sacks, and did not get back up again. There was another man, a new man, standing not a foot behind Charles, who freed his hands. Charles felt the warm leather of the man's gloves against his palms, effortlessly working blood back into circulation. He couldn't see his face.

But his breath was hot against Charles' ear. "Next time, fight back."

*

Charles didn't go into work the next morning -- his head was pounding, and even without that he couldn't bear to see the red, simpering faces of his fellow academicians. It wasn't because of what happened to him. People were mugged by plainclothes cops all the time after being caught walking after curfew.

It was not that his colleagues would see him and smell blood in the water.

They would.

No, it was because of the other thing that happened last night: the Old Bailey was destroyed.

Charles was there for that too. He saw it in person.

It felt no truer than a dream.

*

 _"Who are you? What the hell d'you think you're doing, dragging me up here?" Christ, but Charles hated heights. He struggled to look over the roof's edge without whimpering. And this was enough of a distraction -- it took his mind off other, rather more pertinent matters._

 _Namely that the man who saved him from certain dismemberment was totally off his head. In the minutes that followed Charles' rescue, the man had re-sheathed his knives and rattled off a diatribe that Charles didn't really hear, his black cloak and tunic and boots seeming to suck in the shadows as he moved._

 _Only his mask stood out, silver in the intermittent street glare._

 _His accent was Continental -- maybe German, or something yet farther reaching -- which made him an immigrant, and a renegade._

 _But he clearly took care of himself. He was lithe, wiry and strong, and commanding where Charles was only dumbstruck, dazzled enough to allow himself to be led up a dozen flights in a crumbling tenement block before emerging back into the open air._

 _The chill in his throat, down into his lungs, was shocking. It was enough to startle him into alertness._

 _Now: "Well?" Charles demanded._

 _"Consider it a debt repaid."_

 _"I could have taken them."_

 _"What, three gendarmes armed to the teeth, on the trail for something sweet? I don't think so."_

 _"Right. And what's to stop me from turning you in?" said Charles. His hands curled into fists in his coat pockets. "Unless this is just a ruse, and you're with them. It was as if you knew I'd be there."_

 _The man tilted his head. "You, or someone like you," he agreed, and turned toward the low sidewall. He raised a hand. His whole body went still, stiff with concentration. "Sometimes a craftsman must go to his audience before his audience returns the favor."_

 _That's when the trembling began. Some distance away, the Old Bailey began to fold in on itself, slowly at first, and then with gathering force. After the roof collapsed, crashing downward, every floor folded the next one on its heels. The groan of metal on metal was loud enough to make the boom of intermittent explosions seem more like an echo: Charles felt it in his blood, his bones. He shook with it._

 _"How?_ What _are you?"_

 _"The 'what' should be obvious. And the 'how' only less so. The building's infrastructure has been lately reinforced with steel. What I couldn't manage myself, I left to chemistry."_

 _Then the tremors stopped. The detonations weren't far behind. But the fires burned for another hour, or more._

*

Charles didn't go in to work the next morning: he waited until after lunch. He toed into his office as quietly as he could, and shut the door behind him, ostensibly to ward off interruption. And yet interruption always had a way of finding him: quite unexpectedly, his face appeared on every television screen in London.

This was after every television in London sat hijacked by the man with whom Charles spent a while traipsing about on a rooftop -- _Erik_ , Charles eventually learned. Not only an immigrant, but a mutant. A genetic degenerate.

(What the world left to half-whisper, the media to mockery, and the State to violence and incarceration, Charles stifled in himself.)

And so that measured voice carried over miles of airwaves, alarmingly calm as Erik shouldered credit for what the government shrugged off as a controlled demolition. Charles heard the smile in Erik's voice as he bid warning and promise in equal measure.

Slowly, Charles raised himself from his chair. He could hear people scrabbling in the hallway, some of them all but shouting: "What does it mean?"

The feed cut out, but the screen didn't go dark. Instead, a pair of plucky reporters panned for the camera. They explained-- what, exactly? It was only white noise. And then there was one Charles Francis Xavier, wanted for questioning. Presumed armed and extremely dangerous.

Charles recognized the photo: his University identification card. He'd been grossly hungover when it was taken, red-eyed and bleary, and imagining himself quite clever, he'd raised his chin and grinned cheekily, thinking _Fuck off_. The sentiment was unmistakable.

But this was mistake.

Charles ran.

He ran from the cops in the hall. He ran from colleagues who called after him.

His chest heaved. There was a clamor behind him. Then he sensed that the clamor was more _on_ him than behind. Before he lost consciousness, he reasoned, _I'd hoped it would come so easily._


End file.
